Review: Mission Impossible 2

With Fallout coming out soon I thought it best to return to the Mission Impossible Franchise and review the black sheep of the family, Mission Impossible 2. Having not seen it in a while I couldn't remember why people disliked it so much but with it now fresh in my memory I have to say that the film is surprisingly exactly what people say it is.

Yeah this is a grey spot on an otherwise solid franchise, it's worth just forgetting and moving straight from the first Mission Impossible to the third because you get nothing out of this that's necessary for the film's continuity. This is just over stylised and lacking in any meat to make it worthwhile.

To give an example the story can be summed up in three sentences. IMF Agent Ethan Hunt learns that fellow agent turned rouge Sean Ambrose has used his identity in order to steal a newly designed virus named Chimera and it's antidote, however due to a mistake made by Ambrose and his team they only have the antidote. Along with his fellow agents Luther and Billy, Hunt hires professional thief and Sean's ex-girlfriend Nyah to reconcile with him and spy for them on the inside, feeding them information about what his plans are. When they discover what Ambrose wants with Chimera they have to race to destroy the last remaining samples before he can unleash his master plan, only for everything to take a sudden turn when Nyah involves herself further into the mission than anyone thought she would.

It's far, far too simple, the entire plot revolves around the action movie staples of 1: A deadly virus and 2: Money, that's it, that's the entire motivation of the villains and that's all Hunt and his crew are working with. Things try to shake up with Nyah's sudden twist of heart in the third act but its not enough to save the film from being cliched and forgettable.

Apparently the original cut of the film was 3 and 1/2 hours before being cut down to just 2 which explains for a lot of plot holes and inconsistencies. I didn't notice them too bad but a 90 minute cut to your movie is gonna fuck with the story quite a bit.

The characters were alright, none of them particularly great but not so much horrible either. The only noticeably bad actor is Dougray Scott as Sean Ambrose, the guy just overacts the fuck out of every scene, he's trying way too hard to come off as threatening and the key word there is 'trying', he does not fit the criteria to be an effective bad guy, no matter how many times the film tries to tell us he's a trigger-happy maniac, just seeing him scream out like he was kicked in the balls ruins any illusion that he's anything passed an annoyance.

I find it funny that Scott was up for the role of Wolverine but turned it down for this, funny how things work out.

Both Brendan Gleeson and Anthony Hopkins aren't in the film long enough to be any good, not any bad but not good either. Ving Rhames is always a welcome presence playing computer hacker Luther, his back-and-forth with Ethan was a nice touch because it kept to the character's friendships, plus its always funny to have big, threatening Rhames plays the tech guy and short, nimble Cruise be the action hero. Alongside Luther was newbie Billy Baird who felt like he was trying to be the comic relief, to limited effect, not that he wasn't funny but his delivery was too forced at times, you can understand why he's not been back.

Thandie Newton plays Nyah, the love interest of the film and she's the one that suffers the most from the apparent cuts. While at first she's this confident, sexy thief, once she's forced back into a relationship with Ambrose she really suffers, both as a character and as a person. The whole sexual aspect of her character and the fact that she's more or less being forced to sleep with someone she hates is barely touched upon but it's brought up enough to make you wonder why it's not a bigger deal, plus there's great stretches of the film where Nyah doesn't appear at all which is strange considering how big a part she plays in the final act. I get that Hunt's the main draw but she's the secondary lead and she's feel underwritten as hell.

Finally there's Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, Cruise is probably the best aspect of the film, aside from some really quite fucking stupid faces being pulled in the slow-mo sequences this is his film and does a good job with it. Hunt's not the most complex of characters but he's always fun to watch, you do get the feeling that Hunt's at his happiest when the odds are never in his favour, he's an adrenaline junkie at times - one of the film's better moments is when Ambrose makes the point that Hunt will sooner do an impossible stunt than hurt anyone - and that shows fine, I think what makes Cruise and Hunt work differently to someone similar like Bond or Bourne is that Hunt genuinely has fun with his job and isn't as dour as his counterparts.

Now for arguably the film's biggest issue, it's direction. Now look I like John Woo, Hard Boiled is a fun fucking movie with no apologies about what it is. But I don't think he's suited for this, this feels more like a John Woo movie than a Mission Impossible movie and the two don't gel, Woo is too focused on making the film look good while the film itself is trying to tell an espionage action thriller but can't find the time to tell that story right. It's a case of sacrificing story for action rather than weaving the two together and both suffer as a result, with the action taking up too much time the story can't develop and without a story the action scenes are pointless.

Woo's problem is that he puts way too much effort into making the film look stylish that it just feels forced, the film tries to pull off a legitimate action movie but it can't, every time it looks like Woo is pulling off something fitting of the Mission Impossible franchise he slow the film down, he throws on that pretentious wailing singer that's in every movie trying to be more important than it actually is and maybe he chucks a dove or two in there for good measure, it's never a good sign when you're rolling your eyes at the film's key moments, the final chase sequence is just minute after minute of cars crashing into things and the camera spazzing out to show the explosion as many times as possible before moving on, all leading into a fucking game of motorbike chicken where Hunt and Ambrose literally fucking jump into each other's arms while their bikes run off and explode because there's always a fucking explosion.

To put it into perspective Woo's best scene of the film is when Hunt breaks into the lab and that's only because he's forced into making the film slow down and breath for a moment, using silence and tension to build naturally and even then he can't go too long before Ambrose arrives to fuck things up.

My initial thoughts of Mission Impossible 2 did give it a point higher but looking back I have to drop it, there's too much wrong with this film to justify it. The whole damn thing is too stylised with no substance in its lacklustre story to back it up and aside from a couple moment and Cruise's enjoyment as the Hunt character this is a failed entry into the franchise and worth forgetting.

5/10